


Reboot

by tehkittykat



Category: Tron: Uprising
Genre: F/M, GFY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 10:02:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2769152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tehkittykat/pseuds/tehkittykat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What some people were doing on a ship in a place with some explosions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reboot

**# shutdown -r +15**

"I take everything back  _this_  is the worst idea you’ve ever had,” Zed said, his clutch on Beck’s back digging painfully into a ventral circuit, but Beck didn’t really have the heart to try and move him. Or the free hands— trying to fly double in a stolen lightjet wasn’t the  _easiest_  thing in the world.

"Paige, ETA?" Beck called, wishing he could see her trail ahead. 

"Two micros. Hang back until I signal you. Something weird is going on."

"Got it."

"Oh  _User_  that was a whole wing!” Mara said, and Beck muttered a curse and dragged the jet over toward her position, just in time to catch the trails of the wing that had gone screaming out of.. was that the bridge of the Rectifier? They were after a white lightflier that was making a beeline for the Portal, and an itch in the back of Beck’s processes wanted to go after it, to find out what the glitch was happening.

"I am never flying with you again. I’m staying on the ground where I _belong_ ,” Zed muttered, and Beck sighed and let the idea go. No way he’d be able to keep up, and he  _did_  have more important things to do.

He forced himself to watch Paige swinging in— her lights were still solid red-orange, even this many cycles after she’d defected— and not try to track the progress of the wing. It was hard. If he had to guess, Rinzler was among the jets somewhere… it explained the  _itch_.

"We’re not too late," Paige hissed over the comm. "Come in on my position. We might be able to launch the cargo sailers back out."

"Acknowledged."

"Roger!"

They arced in, and Beck swore again as he saw them, row on row on row of freshly-rectified sentries, their erasure so new that they were still standing there, doll-like, waiting for first orders. He decided he was happy that Zed only ever flew with his eyes shut. One of them having nightmares about this was going to be enough, thanks.

**# shutdown -r +10**

Clu had been overconfident, at least. No guards, or Guard for that matter, were on anything like a standard patrol, just a skeleton crew left on the massive ship. It was a small blessing as they crept among the racks and racks of shipping containers, each stuffed with programs in stasis-lock, and triggered the recall on the dormant sailers that brought them. There had to be hundreds of dissenters and random programs alike— the solution to the missing persons case. It wasn’t hard to figure out what happened to the unaccounted for, there in their neat rows still on the main deck.

"How many left?" he whispered to Paige as they crossed paths. She looked up from her place leaning on a cargo container and rubbing her temples. 

"One to go, and then we get off this thing. I don’t like this. We’re still moving."

"Right for the Portal," Beck said, swallowing. "One of us should try the bridge, get us turned around."

"Go have fun, since you volunteered," she said, rolling her eyes as she shooed him. He grinned, even if it still felt a little sickly. 

"Pass the word, keep comm silence. I’ll meet you at the rendez-vous," Beck said, and peered over the top of the last crates. Good. No hint of red.

"Be careful."

"Always."

**# shutdown -r +5**

"Glitch me," Beck whispered, staring at the wall of light approaching way too fast. Way faster than this bucket could turn, and by all the unseen he really hoped that the others were clear because this was probably going to be  _it_ , a whole fragging kilocycle and this whatever-the-glitch was going to kill him because of course he had to drag everyone else into being hero even if it was  _insane_  and—

Power slammed into the Rectifier, and between his  _everything_  ringing and trying to angle the ship to continue riding the wave, Beck was a bit too busy to actually  _think_.

**# shutdown -r +0**

"—User if I don’t you waste of electrons!"

That was Paige. Beck cracked his eyes open, trying not to focus too much on the aching everywhere and the itch in the back of his code. Her perfect hair was mussed, and she punched him right in the chest the nano she noticed his eyes were open.

"Hi," he said, feeling an unaccustomed smile start. It felt too light to be real.

"What were you thinking? Why didn’t you jump?"

"I didn’t want to leave them behind," Beck said, waving vaguely. Oof, no, that was a bad plan. "It’s not their fault."

"You  _stupid_ — You are so lucky that worked. Because if you’d derezzed I would have recompiled you just to  _kill you again_. I can’t even believe this thing is still in the air.”

Beck laughed, an even worse idea than trying to wave, but he couldn’t quite stop it.

"Shut up. Stop it," Paige said, smacking him again before her own lips started to curve. "Why can’t you be like normal programs?"

"You wouldn’t like me that way."

Cautiously— he couldn’t see any actual cracks in his frame— he levered up. The wave had wrecked the bridge all right, but instead of shattering something had broken his fall… something maybe explained by the sentries crowded around them both, each looking somewhere between frightened and bemused.

"What happened? I just remember the light and—" Beck said, turning back to Paige, who sat back on her heels.

"I’m not sure. But… Beck. He’s gone."

"He who?"

"Clu. He’s not on the process list. None of his higher-level commanders are," Paige said, looking down and away for a moment. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "It looks like.. well, apparently  _I’m_  the highest-ranked in the local directory. The sentries all activated when I started telling them to move.”

Beck stared— he couldn’t do anything else. 

It was over? All this time, and it was finally over? Had whatever unleashed the blast finally done it?

He risked a thread of his own tightly-locked awareness into the process list, but the check only confirmed what Paige said— the Grid was still reverberating with the deletion of the sysadmin, errors and frantic chatter spilling through communications bands that had been silent since the Occupation  _began_.

He looked at Paige, who was frowning pensively at the milling sentries. 

He could still feel a subtle itch in his code, the itch he’d had since he accepted that piece of Tron, all those cycles ago. He’d have to get on that, but first?

"You can order me around  _anytime_ , Boss-lady.”

Beck’s grin didn’t diminish one bit when Paige clapped a hand over his mouth.

**hello, world**


End file.
